1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a laminated ceramic electronic component such as a laminated inductor, a laminated common mode choke coil, and other such devices, and more particularly, the present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a laminated ceramic electronic component in which the lamination process is carried out by a transfer process and to the laminated ceramic electronic component.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, laminated coils produced by a ceramic integration firing technique have been known as inductance components that can be reduced in size. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 56-155516 discloses an open magnetic circuit type laminated coil as an example of the above-mentioned type laminated inductor. In the manufacturing of this device, first, magnetic ceramic paste is printed several times to form an outer lower-layer portion of the inductor. Next, conductors each constituting a portion of the coil and magnetic paste are alternately printed, so that the coil conductor is formed. While the coil conductor is formed by printing, non-magnetic paste is printed instead of the magnetic paste. After the coil conductor is printed, the magnetic paste is printed several times to form an upper outer layer. The laminate produced in this manner is pressed in the thickness direction thereof, and is fired, whereby the open magnetic circuit type laminated coil is produced.
According to the above-described method of producing an open magnetic circuit type laminated coil, the magnetic or non-magnetic paste and the conductor paste are printed and laminated to product a laminate. In the printing and lamination technique, printing is further carried out in an area in which printing is previously carried out. Accordingly, for example, the height of an area where the conductor constituting the coil conductor is printed is different from that of the other area. This causes a problem in that the flatness of a base for printing is insufficient. For this reason, blurring and other problems occur when the magnetic paste, the non-magnetic paste, or the conductor is printed. Thus, it is difficult to form a desired laminated coil highly accurately.
Moreover, in the above-described printing and lamination technique, it is necessary to prepare the magnetic paste, the non-magnetic paste, and the conductor paste by using materials having a high compatibility with a printing base, respectively. Thus, these types of components have limitations and problems.
Moreover, according to the above-described printing and lamination technique, paste after printing is required to be dried to some degree before the next printing. Accordingly, it takes a long time to carry out the process and the process is very complicated. In addition, it is difficult to reduce the cost of the laminated coil.